Oh the Places You'll Run
by Lavender90210
Summary: The life and times of Pavel A. Chekov, as he goes from being a misunderstood Russian whiz-kid to a Starfleet hero
1. Chapter 1

From the beginning now:

Pavel Andreievich Chekov was running. He was on his evening run through the park, letting the cool air rip into his lungs as his feet pounded on the pavement. He loved running, it was what cleared his mind and allowed to feel free. He always ran and he wanted to keep running. He ran away from bullies his whole life, he ran away from his parents and his hometown, he ran away from himself. He was only twelve year old, a genius by many standards, and in his final year at Moscow State University. And he was still running. The University had recruited Pavel when he was nine, having heard rumors of a whiz kid living out in Taganrog. They couldn't resist trying to pull him into their system once they had seen how much of a genius he truly was. Whiz kid, genius, freak, they all had different names for Pavel, and Pavel wasn't sure he liked any of them. He wanted to be Pasha, a caring son and driven person, but never got to be. He was branded as a freak from the time he was three years old and doing advanced geometry. All anyone one saw in Pavel was his brain and his talent, and no one ever thought to care otherwise.

At first he thought that being recruited to a university would make his parents, Andrei and Anna, proud of him. But it only made things worse.  
_"A university? At his age? I always knew he was a freakish child, but this is too much" , his father had yelled at his mother in a drunken stooper. "He finished high school two years ago, he should be working and contributing to the income of this family like any boy his age should be doing! Enough is enough!"  
"Andrei, calm down, he is a smart boy, our Pasha. He should be allowed to go study, just for a few years" Anna said. "Maybe it will be good for him, give a chance to normalize a bit, then he can come back and get a job"  
Pavel had had his ear pressed firmly to his bedroom door, listening to the altercation. He did want to go to the university, it might be a chance for him to make friends and to find someplace in the world where he could fit in.  
Andrei took a step towards his wife and said "Fine. Let the little freak go to the University, he's no good to us here anyway. Too scrawny for labor, fast as hell but weak as can be. Send him away and he can stay away until he can contribute to this family."_

And so that was that. Pavel packed his meager belongings into a duffel bag, bought a shuttle ticket to Moscow and the next month, and began his University career.  
And University was great at first for Pavel, it really truly was. Then, however, reality set in. It was no different than his life back home. Sure he finally had classes that could challenge him in astrophysics and calculus, but he still didn't fit in. He was bullied for being top of his class. For being the little genius freak that was only ten years old and acing his university exams. Professors loved him and wanted him in their classes, to make an example of him and to show people what true talent was. Other students hated him. They hated how someone so young could be so smart, smarter than all the adults that surrounded him. They yelled at him, told him that he didn't belong, that he should go back home to mommy and daddy and watch his cartoons. They were jealous Pavel had always assumed, jealous of his smarts, but the other students always just ridiculed him. He had been beaten up a fair share of times, but that was only when he couldn't out run his bullies.

Pavel wouldn't have even minded the people picking on him and the professors showing him off like some sort of top prize if he had had a friend to support him along the way, but he didn't. The only reason he had truly decided to accept the University's offer to him was because he had a hope and desire deep inside of him that he might achieve some sort of acceptance there. Someone who would see him for who he was, someone who would become his friend. Except Pavel had yet to make any friends in his now three years at Moscow State, he had a few acquaintances sure. People who would say hi to him in the halls, or those who would ask him to be their tutor, but he lacked even one true friend. Pavel was miserable about it, miserable to a breaking point. More than once he had stood on the bridge near the university and contemplated just jumping. One jump to end all the misery and isolation that he felt. One jump and he would be free.

Pavel stopped running and sat on his favorite bench in the park and looked up. He looked up at the stars. He had admired space and the stars ever since he could remember. Some nights when his father would get extremely drunk and angry, he would run outside to the field behind his house and watch the stars. It was an escape for him, an escape from his grim reality. He had always thought that that was where he was truly meant to be, among the stars, looking down at earth. Space was beautiful in a literal and mathematical sense to him. It was full of equations and theories just waiting to be used and tested. Pavel thought that the stars would one day hold his future, and that was why he never took that one jump.

He would sit on that bridge and look down at the river, contemplating the relief that the jump would bring, just to end it all. Then he would look up into the night sky at see the stars twinkling, an invitation to come and join them. Every time on the bridge, Pavel felt the pull of the stars rather than the current of the river.

This is why now, Pavel sat on his favorite bench and looked up to the sky and said " One day I will be up there, I will make sure of it." And with that, Pavel took back off on his run, with a new plan in mind. He was always running in his life, running away from everything. But now Pavel thought, with the ghost of a grin on his face, he was running towards something. Towards his future and his place among the stars. He was running towards Starfleet.


	2. Chapter 2

A New Beginning:

Pavel paced back and forth in the shuttle port, clutching his duffle and PADD close to him. His body was wired on nervous energy and couldn't stay still. This was it. Today was the day that he was making his voyage to San Francisco, and to Starfleet Academy.  
It hadn't been easy to get to this point. He had been working around the clock since he made his decision to go that night in the park. Signing up hadn't been as simple as he had initially thought. He certainly had the academic skill, that was never disputed, the Academy even said he was one of the most qualified applicants they had ever seen.

The problem lied in his age. Pavel was only thirteen years old, the youngest person to ever _apply_ to Starfleet, let alone be accepted in. Because of this, Starfleet had been wary of letting him into the academy for several reasons. As a military organization there are many things that come with working in such an environment, emotional maturity and stability among them. The recruiters had looked into Pavel's home life and found a caring but weak-willed mother, an abuse drunk of a father, and a boy who truly lacked any friends or support system in his life. And yet, after several talks with Pavel and amongst themselves, they decided they could not let skip over his talent and accepted him.

Pavel had never felt so much pure happiness the day the notification had been sent to him. Pure and honest joy, it was not something he had felt in the longest time. As he sat now in the shuttle port eagerly waiting, he read the notice to himself for probably the hundredth time.

Mr. Chekov,

Congratulations! Starfleet Academy is pleased to inform you that you have been granted a spot in the freshman class of 2254. This is a prestigious honor only granted to the most gifted students across the Galaxy. Classes for the fall term will commence on September 1st, however mandatory orientation begins on August 25th. Orientation will include distribution of uniforms, meetings on conduct and policy, as well as housing assignments. Please be advised that your current course scheduled is attached to this document. Welcome Cadet!  
Starfleet Academy  
**Ex Astra Scientia  
**_"From the stars, knowledge"_

Pavel finished the letter again and glanced down at the course schedule. The course schedule had been the thing he really wanted to see. He had tested out of many first year courses and was already fast tracked onto some of the advanced courses. With his skills in Astrophysics he could really take up any position and work out on a space dock for engineering and working on plans for different new ships, but that was not the job he dreamed of. He wanted was to be in the middle of the action, to be the one that someone could count and rely on, he longed to work on the bridge of a spaceship. Navigator he possibly thought, or even a secondary science officer. Whatever the job he knew he wanted to be in the action rather than be side lined. He took one more look at his course schedule and gave the smallest of sighs at one of his classes.

"Engleesh, I can speak it fine," he scoffed.

**Fall Semester Course Schedule: Chekov, Pavel A**

_Advanced Stellar Cartography_- STC 230

_Warp Theory_-WPT 112  
_Applied Astrophysics_-ASRP 304  
_Introduction to Xenobiology_-XBIO 101 (**Mandatory Freshman Cadet Course**)  
_Starfleet History_-STFL 102 (**Mandatory Freshman Cadet Course**)  
_English for non-native speakers_-ENGN 105

Pavel looked at the English class and scoffed. He felt his English was pretty good for only have been learning the language for nine months! Looking down at his PADD, he forgot to look where he was going and smacked right into a rather large and muscular man and fell down.

"Watch where you're walking kid! Shuttle ports can be dangerous places if you take the wrong step"

"Da, er I mean yes I vill be more careful sorwy" Pavel muttered as he pulled himself off the ground, cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.

The man glanced down at him and ask, "Are you getting on the Starfleet shuttle? Ain't you a little young to going out on a visit by yourself?"

"Vell, yes zir I suppose I am young, I am only zirteen, the youngest person to be excepted into Starfleet!" Pavel stated as he puffed himself up with pride on that last statement.

The man stared at him a good long second then broke out into a hearty laughter. "Kid you almost had me going there! I'm sure you'll get there one day, have fun visiting your parents or whoever at the academy."

Pavel glared slightly at the man, "no zir, it iz true, I am going to ze Academy!"

"Yeah, yeah whatever you say kiddo, just don't burn yourself on a phaser!" And with that the man ruffled Pavel's hair and proceed to board the shuttle.  
Pavel sighed and followed suite onto the craft. He had a feeling that he would be getting a lot of these comments at the Academy, and not all of them would be as sweet. He had had plenty of the you're-too-young-for-this talk his whole life, and he was ready to prove everyone wrong.

He tightened his seatbelt as the shuttle prepared for takeoff. With one glance out the window, he gave his silent good-bye to his beloved Russia. Russia was the best place in the entire galaxy, and he couldn't help but feel sadness as it faded out of his view.

Russia would always be there for him, he thought, but now he was enroute to his new home, not just for the next four years, but the rest of his life. Starfleet.


End file.
